Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hey Guys first time poster!

I got a 330 with non adjustable pole piece high gains recently. I love the way the guitar plays but it was very very dark when I got it. I opened it up and saw it was all 250k pots and upon measuring many were reading far below that. I have heard this is common with some 90s models. I went ahead and knocked all the pots up to 500k CTS and I am much happier with the tone now. Love it in fact!

The thing is I really want to be able to use the mix/5th knob to preset the neck pickup as it is much hotter than the bridge. The issue is that as soon as I turn the mix knob the neck pickup gets very dark again. I had read somewhere that the way the mix knob is wired it should retain more high end since technically you are turning up the impedance as you reduce volume. This is not what I’m experiencing though.

I have read that adding a .001-.0022 cap across the 2 terminals will retain the highs. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Will this still reduce volume while keeping highs or will it now only reduce bass?

Any other advice to achieve what I’m attempting? I think it was kind of the original intent of the design - to have one level setting knob that retains highs while having the volume act as a normal vintage style volume knob. I’m just not getting those results stock.

Thanks!!

First, have you also changed out the 5th knob pot for one of higher value? Even though the third lug of the fifth knob pot is not grounded, it could still load the circuit.
Second, what does the neck pickup measure? Is it overwound? If so, as were many 80's high gains, there may not be any high end left to preserve.
Third, is the bridge pickup underwound? Again, many bridge pickups of 80's guitars were underwound for maximum brightness at the expense of output.
Fourth, does the bridge pickup have the .0047 inline capacitor to the pickup? If so, with an overwound neck pickup, that could account for the imbalance being more than it should be. You can add a modern push-pull pot from RIC that takes the inline capacitor in and out of the bridge pickup circuit.
Fifth, and all for now, have you lowered the neck pickup by the two adjustment screws at either end of the pickup (not the corner screws)? With more string excursion up towards the neck than at the bridge, you need to raise the bridge pickup, but not so high the magnetism interferes with the string, and lower the neck pickup. This will take a little articulation away from the neck pickup, but you may not need as much volume compensation from the fifth knob.
That's all for now.

I have knocked the pickup down away from strings as much as the screws will allow (which was not a ton)

Also I did upgrade the 5th knob to 500k along with the rest.

Mine does not have the inline cap for the bridge.

I am actually overall very happy with the tone now just want to be able to utilize the 5th knob for balancing without losing so much high end!

I used my 5th knob as a bass cut for a while, but can't remember what cap value I used. It worked nicely to trim output and brighten the sound at the same time!